Weed Whacked
By Mitch Berg
Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:
California has legal marijuana so of course there are farms to grow it. And it’s hot, dirty, stoop-labor, field work so the cheapest workers are illegal aliens, whom ICE is arresting to deport. That all makes sense.What’s the deal with the children? Were they truly slaves, kidnapped from their parents, trafficked across the border, held captive by adults, forced by cruel overseers to labor under the burning sun, as the article suggests? That would be horrible.Or did the whole family come over together, all working at the same farm? That would be illegal but morally acceptable. They still have to go back, of course, but there’s no glory in enforcing that law.Or are they young adults, maybe 15 or so, doing farm work (as we did when we were kids) because union rules, labor laws, and minimum wage rates make it impossible for young people to get entry-level jobs nowadays? That would be more annoying than horrifying and certainly not something to celebrate.I question whether the feds heroically rescued child slaves or simply arrested entire families. It’s frustrating when press releases read like propaganda.Joe Doakes
When people can’t trust their sources of information, they make up their own.
July 15th, 2025 at 6:08 am
[blush]
I got to confess, I still listen to MPR from time to time. I’ve been doing it since the 70’s, so it’s an old habit and hard to break.
Anyways… a couple of days ago, MPR aired a weepy story about the lack of farm workers who harvest our blueberries and apples and stuff like that, but wait a minute, didn’t Biden import 10 million illegal immigrants?
You would think they would be doing those jobs.
The thing is, those immigrants, like most people in the world and third world came from cities. Big cities. So where do they go when they get here?
Big cities.
They would no more do agricultural work than anyone here who grew up in a big city.
Then what do they do when they get here?
Great question.
July 15th, 2025 at 7:19 am
What I’ve heard about that specific farm is that there were 10 children found working. They looked like teenagers in the photo that the authorities released. 8 of them were “unaccompanied.”
So, 2 of the 10 were there with their parents.
I haven’t heard if any of the remaining 8 have been identified as being some of the hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied minors that the Biden Administration lost after releasing them to unvetted adults.
There’s the added wrinkle that by California law people have to be 21 to work at marijuana farms. I haven’t seen anything about how many 18-21 year olds were found to be working there.
July 15th, 2025 at 8:56 am
Building off what Smith noted, if 8 of the 10 were “unaccompanied”, we have to assume that they were not helping their families, and the odds that they were in de facto slavery are pretty good. One of the less known realities of illegal immigration is that there are all kinds of horrors in getting people across the desert. All are subject to demands that they act as mules for the drug trade, young women are very likely to be raped, and yes, unaccompanied minors are likely to end up in slavery.
So I am against illegal immigration because I care enough about poor Mexicans to say “this isn’t acceptable.”.
July 15th, 2025 at 3:04 pm
I’m still waiting to see the strong punishment that the farm itself suffers for hiring illegals.